The Grammy Award-winning Minnesota Orchestra, led by Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård—who is serving as music director designate during the 2022-23 season—is recognized for distinguished performances around the world, award-winning recordings and broadcasts, educational engagement programs, and commitment to building the orchestral repertoire of the future. Founded in 1903, the Orchestra has an extensive history of touring throughout Minnesota, nationally and abroad, including high-profile visits in recent years to Cuba, Europe and South Africa. Recording projects undertaken in the past two decades include complete cycles of symphonies by Beethoven, Sibelius and Mahler, all recorded under Osmo Vänskä, who is now the Orchestra’s conductor laureate.

The Sphinx Virtuosi are the nation's most dynamic, exhilarating professional chamber orchestra, dedicated to increasing racial and ethnic diversity in classical music. Comprised of eighteen of the nation's top Black and Latinx classical soloists, the Virtuosi are primarily alumni of the internationally renowned Sphinx Competition, and its members work together as cultural ambassadors reaching new audiences. This unique ensemble earned rapturous reviews from The New York Times during its highly acclaimed debut at Carnegie Hall in December 2004: Allan Kozinn described their performance as “first-rate in every way” and raved that “the ensemble produced a more beautiful, precise and carefully shaped sound than some fully professional orchestras that come through Carnegie Hall in the course of the year.”